Shaun, not sure if this is the way to go, however this is the approach I am taking...

var root = CurrentPage.AncestorOrSelf(1);

var blogHome = root.Children.Single(x => x.DocumentTypeAlias == "Articulate");

var blogArchive = blogHome.Children.Single(x => x.DocumentTypeAlias == "ArticulateArchive");

ListModel lModel = new ListModel(blogArchive, blogArchive.Children(),

        new PagerModel(blogArchive.Children().Count(), 1, blogArchive.Children().Count()/10));

Not sure about the PagerModel issue, I am using the lModel variable to call:

Umbraco.GetRecentPosts(lModel, 5)

Would love to know if there is a better way of doing this.

Russell

Anybody have luck with manipulating articleDate into a different format? I have something like

foreach (var post in blogArchive.Children.OrderByDescending(b => b.GetPropertyValue("publishedDate")).Take(3))
    {
        <li class="@(post.IsLast() ? " last" : "" )">
            <span>@post.GetProperty("publishedDate").ToString("MMMM dd, yyyy")</span>
        </li>
    }

but the stack trace error says "No overload for method 'ToString' takes 1 arguments." @post.CreateDate.ToString("MMMM dd, yyyy") works great. Do I need to cast or access the property a little differently? Thanks in advance!

Phillip, you are trying to apply the date formatting to an object, not a DateTime type. You will need to cast the object as a DateTime object first, before executing the method ToString("MMMM dd, yyyy). Cheers.

I followed the above notes and am getting the following exception

The best overloaded method match for 'Articulate.Models.ListModel.ListModel(Umbraco.Core.Models.IPublishedContent)' has some invalid arguments

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Any ideas as to how to resolve? I am new to Umbraco and don't quite understand the integration between articulate and umbraco. See also this post https://our.umbraco.org/forum/umbraco-as-a-service/general-questions/64222-Umbraco-7-plus-Articulate-blog-engine

Hi Dave

Could it be related to the node you're pulling back as the root for the articulate blog? I've noticed that the logical node to pull back would be the main blog node, but actually if you're pulling stuff through to the homepage you're better off using the archive node instead.

EDIT: Removed my code as I realised it was the same stuff I posted above. 

I did get it working by passing in the correct id, however i did find some odd behavior.

In my view i was using var root = Model.AncestorOrSelf(1); > When using this and stepping through the code, it would throw a null exception unless i stepped through very slow. I replaced with var root = Model.RootBlogNode; to avoid this problem

What makes it odd is that the AncestorOrSelf approach would NOT WORK if i ran the site without debugging. Slowing it down however allowed Model.AncestorOrSelf(1) to resolve itself to something other than null.

I can't explain this.

Hi, Just got this working and pulling a list of recent blog posts through to my homepage but I was wonder. Is there a way to pull 2 archives in to one feed? Just now I have a partial view and then use two Html.Partial calls on my template.

 @Html.Partial("umbLatestBlogWidget", new Articulate.Models.ListModel(Umbraco.Content(1298)))
            @Html.Partial("umbLatestBlogWidget", new Articulate.Models.ListModel(Umbraco.Content(1312)))

This then gives me two separate lists.

I guess I need to somehow read the two lists and then merge them together in date order but I have no idea where to start with that.

Hi Owain,

You can union the two lists together, then load the partial view.

For example, save the lists into variables first, then perform a union on the list and pass that to the partial view. The union will remove any duplicate entries.

var list1 = new Articulate.Models.ListModel(Umbraco.Content(1298));

var list2 = new Articulate.Models.ListModel(Umbraco.Content(1312));

@Html.Partial("umbLatestBlogWidget", list1.Union(list2))

Hope this helps.

Nathan

Hi Owian,

You will need to use razor syntax to use the variables. Try:

E.g.

@{

var list1 = new Articulate.Models.ListModel(Umbraco.Content(1298));

var list2 = new Articulate.Models.ListModel(Umbraco.Content(1312));

}

@Html.Partial("umbLatestBlogWidget", list1.Union(list2))

Cheers

Apologies, I hadn't test the above. The ListModel cannot have union applied to it as it's not a list, it's a model that contains a list as well as other properties.

To do the union you will need to do something like this:

@{

var list1 = new Articulate.Models.ListModel(Umbraco.Content(1298)).Children();

var list2 = new Articulate.Models.ListModel(Umbraco.Content(1312)).Children();

}

@Html.Partial("umbLatestBlogWidget", list1.Union(list2))

However now the type has changed in the partial. Therefore the model in the partial will need to be changed to:

@model IEnumerable<IPublishedContent>

If you do wish to access any of the ListModel properties within the partial, you still can by accessing the parent.

E.g.

@foreach (var item in Model)
{
    var parent = item.Parent as ListModel;
}

You will need to change the @inherits to accept an IEnumerable

E.g.

@inherits Umbraco.Web.Mvc.UmbracoViewPage<IEnumerable<IPublishedContent>>

This will break your partial because you are still trying to deal with a ListModel in the code. Therefore if you need to use ListModel properties you will need to get the parent of a list item first, then perform the rest of your code on that

E.g.

@{

var parentItem = Model.FirstOrDefault().Parent as ListModel;

var root = parentItem.AncestorOrSelf(3);
var blogRoot = root.Children;
var blogArchive = root.Children.First();

...

}

OK it sounds like you have made some progress.

If list1 is null, it means that either content item 1297 doesn't exist, it is not a ListModel, or it has no children (blog posts). Ensure that all the above are satisfied and it should work.

For error proofing, you could check for null values first before trying to get the children.

Content item 1297 exists because it was pulling the blog posts through when I was doing one blog, one list. It has blog posts in it so what it looks like is it's not a ListModel - how would I check / fix this if that is the case?

Cheers.

I really appreciate the help but I'm still stuck trying to pull two blog streams together so that it shows them in one list on my homepage. Is anyone else able to help me please.

Thanks in advance.

I've been trying to get this to work for the past couple of days, I thought I had cracked it but I'm still getting the error:

    An exception of type 'System.NullReferenceException' occurred in Articulate.dll but was not handled in user code

Additional information: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Now, if I use the number 1289 or 1312 to display the one blog, it pulls the posts with no issues so I know that this is working but I also know that I am obviously not understanding how this works from all the help I've been given so far.

My masterpage has:

<div class="col-md-4">
            @{

                var list1 = new Articulate.Models.ListModel(Umbraco.Content(1289)).Children();
                var list2 = new Articulate.Models.ListModel(Umbraco.Content(1312)).Children();

                list1.ToList();
                list2.ToList();


            }


            @Html.Partial("umbLatestBlogWidget", list1.Union(list2));

        </div>

my Partial has:

@using Articulate
@using Articulate.Models
@using Umbraco.Core
@using Umbraco.Web
@inherits Umbraco.Web.Mvc.UmbracoViewPage<IEnumerable<IPublishedContent>>

@{
    var parentItem = Model.FirstOrDefault().Parent as ListModel;

    var root = parentItem.AncestorOrSelf(3);
    var blogRoot = root.Children;
    var blogArchive = root.Children.First();




    //var root = Model.AncestorOrSelf(3);
    //var blogRoot = root.Children;
    //var blogArchive = root.Children.First();




    if (!blogArchive.Children.Any())
    {
        <p>No blog posts found</p>
    }
    else
    {
        string strLastClass = "";

        <ul class="recent_blogs">
            @foreach (var post in blogArchive.Children.OrderByDescending(b => b.GetPropertyValue("publishedDate")).Take(3))
            {
                if (post.IsLast())
                {
                    strLastClass = "last";
                }



                <li class="@strLastClass">
                    <h5><a href="@post.Url">@post.Name</a></h5>
                    <p>@post.GetPropertyValue("Excerpt")</p>@post.GetPropertyValue("publishedDate")

                </li>
            }
        </ul>
    }
}

Can anyone tell me where my mistake is please....

I found a checkbox within the document type for the articulate archive which wasn't ticked - "enable list view" I clicked it and hoped this would solve the issue, but nope, I still being told

var list1 = new Articulate.Models.ListModel(Umbraco.Content(1289)).Children();

is returning a null value, i've changed the node number to see if that helps but nothing.

Hi,

I have a question that seems to be driving me mad. How can I pull a partial view into my home page simple? I just want to reference:

@Html.ThemedPartial(Model, "Latest")

from Articulate blog. However, I am not sure how to do this because I do not know what using directives to include, etc.?

Hi Bobi, No my partial is kept within root/views/partials not within Articulate itself.

I set it up via the backoffice just in the usual partials folder 'settings/patrialviews/'

Ok, so I tried the same code as your partial in my partial, and then tried to call it. Everything is running, except whatever is supposed to show up from your partial isn't ... ?

Hi, thanks again for following-up. You've been extremely helpful in what I can only describe as one of the most frustrating of things...

My content appears as so:

index is my supposed to be my homepage...

Glad I could help. I've had so much help on here that it's nice that I can actually help someone else for a change :)

O.

Thanks Owain. I used the simple one too...It works great. I'm trying to figure out how to display an excerpt (some text in front and behind of the search term query, so that it can be called and displayed underneath the @result.Name; and then ideally, to highlight the search text by bolding it. Any knowledge as to how to go about that?

I tried the advanced tutorial too, but unfortunately, my site does not use field properties, so it's not too effective, since the advanced tute relies on those fields.

Owain,

After some help from Kris Janssen (another helpful member) and a bit of tinkering, I ended up with the following, which works to filter by category. I hope this helps you make your method above work, since I like the simplistic nature of it. If you figure it out, feel free to let me know :)

@using Articulate
@using Articulate.Models
@using System.Linq

@inherits UmbracoTemplatePage

@{
    // EDIT: This node id is unlikely to ever change so hardcoding it should be OK.
    var newsroot = Umbraco.TypedContent(1066);
    var blogArchive = newsroot.Children.First();
    var categories = Umbraco.TagQuery
                        .GetAllContentTags("ArticulateCategories")
                        .Select(x => x.Text)
                        .OrderBy(x => x);
    var categoriesUrl = newsroot.GetPropertyValue<string>("categoriesUrlName");

// EDIT: Get the Children here once instead of repeatedly
    var entries = blogArchive.Children();
    var postDate = newsroot.CreateDate.ToString("MMMM d, yyyy");
    string c = "Test";
}

<!--=== News Block ===-->
<div class="bg-grey">
<div class="container content-sm">
    <div class="text-center margin-bottom-50">
        <h2 class="title-v2 title-center">RECENT NEWS</h2>
    </div>
    <div class="row news-v1">

        @if (c == "Test")
        {
            var filteredEntries = entries
                   // EDIT: Splitting the property value is not needed ...
                   .Where(x => x.GetPropertyValue<string>("categories") != null && x.GetPropertyValue<string>("categories").InvariantContains(c))
                   //EDIT: Only order after selecting for the categories, less to order that way
                   .OrderByDescending(x => x.UpdateDate)
                   .Take(3)
                   .ToList();




            foreach (var p in filteredEntries)
            {
               var blogTitle = @p.Name;
                <div class="col-md-4 md-margin-bottom-40">
                    <div class="news-v1-in bg-color-white">
                        <a href="@(newsroot.Url + "/" + categoriesUrl + "/" + c)"><img class="img-responsive" src="@p.GetCropUrl("postImage", "indexBlogPost")" title="@p" alt="@p" /></a>

                        <h3 class="font-normal"><a href="@(newsroot.Url + "/" + categoriesUrl + "/" + c)">@blogTitle</a></h3>

                        <p>@(Umbraco.Truncate(p.GetPropertyValue<string>("excerpt"), 75))</p>
                        <ul class="list-inline news-v1-info no-margin-bottom">
                            <li><i class="fa fa-clock-o"></i> @postDate</li>
                        </ul>
                    </div>
                </div>
            }
        }
        @*else if (c != "Test")
        {
            <div class="col-md-4 md-margin-bottom-40">
                <div class="news-v1-in bg-color-white">

                    <h3>No News</h3>

                </div>
            </div>
        }
            *@
    </div>
</div>
</div>
<!--=== End News Block ===-->

It works, which is nice. I am just trying to figure out how to now display some generic html code (i.e. No recent news) if there are no articles in the specified category.

Edit

I got things working. There may be inefficiencies, but nevertheless here it is:

@using Articulate
@using Articulate.Models
@using System.Linq
@inherits UmbracoTemplatePage
@{
// EDIT: This node id is unlikely to ever change so hardcoding it should be OK.
var newsroot = Umbraco.TypedContent(1066);
var blogArchive = newsroot.Children.First();
var categories = Umbraco.TagQuery
                        .GetAllContentTags("ArticulateCategories")
                        .Select(x => x.Text)
                        .OrderBy(x => x);
var categoriesUrl = newsroot.GetPropertyValue<string>("categoriesUrlName");

// EDIT: Get the Children here once instead of repeatedly
var entries = blogArchive.Children();

var filteredEntries = entries
                   // EDIT: Splitting the property value is not needed ...
                   .Where(x => x.GetPropertyValue<string>("categories") != null && x.GetPropertyValue<string>("categories").InvariantContains("Test"))
                   //EDIT: Only order after selecting for the categories, less to order that way
                   .OrderByDescending(x => x.CreateDate)
                   .Take(3)
                   .ToList();
}

<!--=== News Block ===-->
<div class="bg-grey">
<div class="container content-sm">
    <div class="text-center margin-bottom-50">
        <h2 class="title-v2 title-center">RECENT NEWS</h2>
    </div>
    <div class="row news-v1">


        @if (filteredEntries == null || filteredEntries.Count() == 0)
        {
            <div class="md-margin-bottom-40 text-center">
                    <h3 class="font-normal">No Recent News</h3>
            </div>
        }
        else
        {
            foreach (var blogNode in filteredEntries)
            {
                var blogTitle = @blogNode.Name;
                var tempExcerpt = @blogNode.GetPropertyValue("excerpt").ToString();
                var postDate = blogNode.CreateDate.ToString("MMMM d, yyyy");
                const int MaxLength = 133;

                <div class="col-md-4 md-margin-bottom-40">
                    <div class="news-v1-in bg-color-white">
                        <a href="@blogNode.Url"><img class="img-responsive" src="@blogNode.GetCropUrl("postImage", "indexBlogPost")" title="@blogTitle" alt="@blogTitle" /></a>
                        <h3 class="font-normal"><a href="@blogNode.Url">@blogTitle</a></h3>
                        @if (tempExcerpt.Length > MaxLength)
                        {
                            tempExcerpt = tempExcerpt.Substring(0, MaxLength) + "...";
                        }
                        <p>@tempExcerpt</p>
                        <ul class="list-inline news-v1-info no-margin-bottom">
                            <li><i class="fa fa-clock-o"></i> @postDate</li>
                        </ul>
                    </div>
                </div>
            }
        }
    </div>
</div>
</div>
<!--=== End News Block ===-->

Hi all,

I am playing around with the idea of changing my node structure due to Articulate's longer than desired url when Articulate is added as a child to your homepage.

Currently my site structure is (first scenario):

-Homepage
  -->Page 1
  -->Articulate
      --Archive
      --Authors

I'm trying to avoid the dreaded url example.com/articulate/archive/first-post for obvious SEO reasons. As well there are duplicate pages when it comes to example.com/articulate and example.com/articulate/archive.

As such, I'm looking to structure the site like so (second scenario):

-Homepage
  -->Page 1
-Articulate
  -->Archive
  -->Authors

As you can see the Articulate node is at the root, along with Homepage.

However, changing this mucks things up when it comes to pulling in recent posts to Homepage. Currently, I'm using the following to pull in recent blog posts:

var blogNodes = @Model.Content.AncestorOrSelf(1).Descendants("ArticulateRichText").OrderBy("publishedDate desc").Take(4); 

This works great for the first scenario, but not in the second updated node structure.

How can a modify the above code to work in the second scenario?

is working on a reply...